Weekly Mobile News Roundup – 8 November 2013

By
On November 8, 2013

 Once again the week is coming to an end and that means it’s time for a roundup of the past weeks news!

iOS 7.0.4 Activity Ramping Up at Apple Ahead of Next Minor Software Update – Apple unsurprisingly appears to be ramping up activity on iOS 7.0.4 as the next version of iOS to see a release to the public, with MacRumors seeing increasing numbers of devices running iOS 7.0.4 from Apple’s networks showing up in web logs.

Apple working to slim its iWatch via intermittent Bluetooth LE connection? – An Apple patent filing filed today suggests that Apple may be working on a way to make its long-rumored iWatch slimmer than existing offerings by reducing the size of the battery required.

New update from Apple gets Mavericks and Gmail to play nice – Apple has just issued a patch specifically for Gmail users running Mail.app in OS X 10.9. The 32.46MB Mail Update for Mavericks is said to bring “improvements to general stability and compatibility with Gmail,” specifically a bug that causes unread message counts to be inaccurate, and another bug that “prevents deleting, moving, and archiving messages for users with custom Gmail settings.”

Access Your Mac From Your iPhone With App – A new app called Knock lets you do the unthinkable: Unlock your Mac using your iPhone. The app is free on the Mac but carries a moderate price tag on Apple’s smartphone.

Apple Shuts Down iPad Air and iPhone 5s In-Store Pickup Tracking Site – Several times in recent days, we’ve mentioned a website called Apple-Tracker.com that was allowing customers to easily monitor in-store Personal Pickup availability of iPhone 5s and iPad Air models.

18 Coolest and Most Unusual Facts – Below are 18 of the most cool and unusual facts about Apple Inc. The company began in a humble suburban garage in Los Altos, California, in 1976 and since then it has grown to be the beloved corporate juggernaut that it is. Along the way, a number of interesting, incredible, and silly things have happened. Here they are, in no particular order.

We don’t know how much Apple’s 12-core Mac Pro will cost, but we know it’ll shred benchmarks – Ever since the first updated Mac Pro result appeared on the Geekbench Browser back in June, everyone has been curious about how the upcoming Mac Pros will perform.

Apple Releases Fix for NVIDIA Graphics Issue on New 15-Inch Retina MacBook Pro – Alongside today’s release of a firmware update addressing keyboard and trackpad issues on Apple’s new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, the company has released a separate firmware update for owners of the new 15-inch models.

Apple crowned World’s Most Valuable Brand third time in a row – Forbes released its yearly rankings of the world’s most valuable brands today, and just like the last two years, Apple has topped the list followed by long time rival Microsoft.

OS X Mavericks Is Now Installed On More Than 10% Of Macs, Smashing Mountain Lion’s Adoption Rate – If Apple decided to make updates to its OS X operating system free in part to drive more rapid consumer uptake, it was a great decision: Market adoption of its new OS X Mavericks operating system has beaten adoption of the preceding Mountain Lion version by a large margin.

Apple Nabs Top 5 Spot With iPhone in China – After a long, hard-fought battle against the kings of Korea, Apple has finally gained a decent enough foothold to hold a candle against their arch rivals. According to ZDNet, a report from Sina Tech notes that Apple and their high-end handset have been steadily climbing the ranks in the Chinese market.

So when’s that new iPad Mini coming, anyway? – Two weeks after Apple announced a new iPad Mini, shoppers looking to snap one up for the holidays — or just for themselves — are no closer to knowing when the tablet might hit stores.

Pebble updated to better support iOS 7 and Notification Center – When Pebble launched it didn’t have that great of support for iOS due to restrictions, but with iOS 7 new possibilities arose. Well, the new 1.3.0 update for Pebble it can get the notifications sent to Notification Center from any service, even third party applications.

35 Years Of Apple: In Photos – For all the acres of copy written about the stuff Apple produces, it might be just as instructive to think about the stuff they don’t do. They don’t produce Apple-branded clothing. They don’t produce speakers or high-end headpones.